A Scottish colleague forwarded me this report from a conference – and I spotted BUs own Michelle Morgan featured talking about enhancing the student experience.
The full post is here:
== extract from Advance HE blog site:
Michelle Morgan, Associate Dean for Student Experience at Bournemouth University, opened the event with a keynote titled ‘Supporting Student Transitions’, exploring the tension between different roles, departments and professionals and how we are all servants to the academic imperative. Morgan also highlighted that institutions tend to focus much energy on the first two weeks of a student’s university experience and latterly the whole of the first year. Other academic years (levels) are often neglected, especially the mid-point of the degree. Much of the literature on supporting student transitions tends to focus on those new to HE in the first year of study, which is the main entry point for 18-21 year olds. However, there are significant numbers of students who articulate or are direct entry into HE from elsewhere and their starting point is different; often these students receive less help transitioning into HE and so more needs to be done to ensure that these students have a positive experience at their point of entry.
Morgan highlighted the positive benefits and outputs of studying at University, with opportunities for social mobility, increases in community engagement and greater social tolerance. In addition, graduate employment contributes to the strength of the economy and studying at university can lead to greater engagement in the democratic process. However Morgan was keen to point out that there are unintended consequences of the HE system with graduates being overqualified for the jobs in which they find themselves working, leading to negative intergenerational mobility and potentially disengagement from politics. In addition there are high levels of study debt making home ownership, pensions and disposable income a real challenge for graduates.
